Of Cashew Shells and Fear of Heights
by Tracy Diane Miller
Summary: Having to save a friend forces Gary to confront his fears.


Of Cashew Shells and Fear of Heights  
  
Summary: This very short story was inspired by "Blackout".  
  
Disclaimer: Early Edition characters belong to whoever created them. No  
  
copyright infringement intended. No profit is being made. Some of the dialogue that appears in this story is not my own, but belongs to the writer of the Early Edition episode "Blackout."  
  
Author: Tracy Diane Miller  
  
E-mail address: tdmiller82@hotmail  
  
  
  
Of Cashew Shells and Fear of Heights  
  
The dog's faint barking filtered through the night air, a welcome beacon as  
  
he entered the abandoned building in search of his friend.  
  
She sat on the scaffolding, the throbbing pain in her foot competing with  
  
the fear throbbing in her heart. Even though darkness surrounded her she  
  
knew that where ever she was it was very high up and this knowledge fed her  
  
fear as she struggled to remain still on the shaky device.  
  
"Marissa!"  
  
"Gary! I'm up here. I'm up here, Gary." She answered, her voice laced with  
  
panic.  
  
Gary approached the scaffolding. He looked up and saw the huge gap and  
  
Marissa perched high above.  
  
He swallowed hard as he started to climb the scaffolding up to Marissa.  
  
"You know, I really hate heights...a lot." He informed.  
  
This was true.  
  
Ever since he was a little boy and got stuck in that tree house, he had a  
  
tremendous fear of heights. Dad was there with him in the tree house,  
  
comforting him, ensuring him that they would find a way out of their  
  
dilemma, that they wouldn't starve. And he knew that Dad wouldn't let him  
  
down. Still, his stomach did more than a few somersaults waiting for what  
  
seemed like hours as Dad plotted the strategy of their escape.  
  
Then there was that incident in college. Sometimes he wondered why he even  
  
allowed Chuck to talk him into joining that fraternity. Those fraternity  
  
guys were nuts! He would never forget the time two of their fraternity  
  
brothers drove him and Chuck to an undisclosed location for the ultimate  
  
"surprise". Some surprise. When they arrived, he learned that the guys  
  
planned to go bungee jumping. Careful not to go too close to the edge, Gary  
  
looked down from the cliff at the abyss below. He wondered how many stories  
  
of untimely deaths the echoing crater below held.  
  
"You'll get such a rush, man. It's so cool." One fraternity brother  
  
insisted.  
  
Right, like he'd even consider putting an overgrown rubber band on his leg  
  
and hurling himself off of a cliff, then waiting for his body to snap back  
  
in some unnatural contortion!  
  
Over the years, the paper tested his fear of heights. He remembered  
  
climbing from an apartment building window (after getting the cantankerous  
  
and soap opera obsessed older woman to leave the building, then getting  
  
locked inside her apartment himself as smoke moved swiftly through the  
  
hallway) and dangling from a faulty scaffolding after rescuing a painter.  
  
These were a few moments that triggered spasms of fear and sent his heart  
  
into desperate palpitations.  
  
The sound of Marissa's voice jolted Gary from his reverie.  
  
"Be careful, Gary. Take your time."  
  
She really didn't need to tell him that. With his heart pounding, he slowly  
  
made his way up the scaffolding all the while trying to quiet his rising  
  
fear. Finally, he reached Marissa.  
  
"You all right?" He asked concerned.  
  
"I think I hurt my foot." She confirmed.  
  
"Which one?" He inquired.  
  
"The right one." She responded, gritting her teeth through the pain.  
  
Gary's eyes spied some boards on the scaffolding. He decided to use the  
  
boards to create a makeshift bridge to the other side. Realizing that he  
  
needed to calm Marissa's fears (as well as his own), he began rambling on  
  
about an unlikely topic.  
  
"Hey, you know what? A funny thing happened the other day when I was in the  
  
bar, over by the cash register, you know, where we keep the cashews." He  
  
said.  
  
"Right." Marissa responded, not sure where the conversation was heading.  
  
"Well, I was looking at the cashews and I had one and I thought to myself,  
  
what does a cashew shell look like?" He continued.  
  
"What?" She said.  
  
"What does a cashew shell look like, did you ever think about that? He  
  
asked.  
  
"Actually, I've never thought of that." She revealed.  
  
"Well, I didn't either. I've eaten a lot of cashews and I've seen a lot of  
  
cashew shells, but I've never seen a cashew shell sitting next to a shelf.  
  
I just saw the cashew." He explained.  
  
"Nice try, Gary."  
  
Gary protectively took Marissa's hand. "There's just a little walkway up  
  
right here and there's just a little spot where we're going over here and  
  
it's a little bit of an incline, okay? Everything's going to be fine, we're  
  
just going to walk up. Alright?" He reassured.  
  
"All right." She agreed.  
  
"Just give me a hop forward." He said as he helped Marissa get on the  
  
bridge he had created. They continued hopping across until they reached the  
  
other side. A second later, the boards plummeted to the ground below.  
  
"You like to go home now?" He asked almost rhetorically as he lifted her in  
  
his arms and carried her out of the abandoned building. Spike followed  
  
closely behind him.  
  
He had put his fear of heights aside to save his friend's life. He was sure  
  
that this challenge wouldn't be the last one provided by the paper. Since  
  
he started receiving the paper, each day presented its own mysteries.  
  
And there were some mysteries that even tomorrow's newspaper today couldn't  
  
answer...like, what does a cashew shell look like anyway?  
  
  
  
The End. 


End file.
